Easy
by Doverstar
Summary: A sequel to the PnF fanfic Brave, this is the 2nd part in my 3-part one-shot series of Valentine's Day fics! This stars Cody and Autumn, my Phineas and Ferb Original Characters. When Cody's freaked about how uncomfortable his first real V-Day with Autumn will be, he finds out after a few humorous chats that it's not as hard as it originally appeared. R&R!


**(Author's Note: If you haven't read _Brave_ yet, my fanfic I posted earlier this morning, go read that first! This one's next, and then the Phinabella finale! ~Doverstar)**

* * *

It was Valentine's Day. And it was raining.

You might not think that matters. But it does when you actually have a special someone.

Which Cody did.

Well, for 17-year-old Cody Bannister, the rain was more of a blessing than a curse. Today was a day he'd been dreading. But now whatever plans he could have made-most of them, anyway-would be ruined, and so he had a free pass not to worry.

Until his cell phone rang. He'd left it on the coffee table downstairs.

"Phone for you, Cody!" cried his loving foster mother Mrs. Grace cheerily, soon to be his adoptive one, poking her head into his room where he sat staring at the rain out the window.

The brown-haired teen scrambled from his position as she added cheerily: "Oh my goodness. It's a girl!" while covering the receiver with her hand. "Cody, who is she? You never said you'd made a lady friend recently!"

His foster mother didn't know about Autumn Karmer, Cody's sort-of girlfriend. (They hadn't officially referred to each other that way yet, and didn't really care to.) Mrs. Grace was as kind as could be, but didn't know how NOT to speak her mind when it really counted, which was usually an awkward time that led to Cody's embarrassment afterwards.

"Thanks," said Cody hastily, reaching for the phone, but she didn't take the hint and began jabbering away into it.

"Yes, I'm Mrs. Grace, Cody's foster Mom! He hasn't mentioned you! He must be shy. My, you must be quite a looker to have captured our boy's attention! Usually he just sits in his room, isolated from the outside world. You know."

Cody snatched the phone from her hand. "I got it from here, Mrs. Grace."

"All right, but who..."

"'Nobody-'kay-great-bye." Cody ushered her out the door and closed it quickly, waiting until her footsteps faded, his words coming out too quickly for her to really comprehend.

"'Isolated?'" Inquired Autumn through the phone.

"Yeah, I'm wailing in a corner in my room all day. Forever alone."

"Uh huh. She was pretty chatty. You're lucky; all my foster 'rents ever did was give me looks like I had a tarantula on my head."

"Yeah, well, at least they didn't stick their noses in your private life."

"So when do I get to meet her?"

Cody nearly had a heart attack and died on the black-gray shag carpet right then and there.

"Uh, and hour from never. Ever."

"She can't be that bad, tough guy."

"Trust me, the second you get here she'd take your picture and she'd go, '_Aren't you a pretty young thing_!'" Cody imitated his foster mother in a too-high voice. "'_Cody must really enjoy your company! Isn't he just a doll? When's the wedding_?'"

"Wedding?" Autumn scoffed.

"She would say it."

"That's pretty mortifying."

"Right. And it's because I'm such a fabulous guy that I'm not making you set foot in this house until doomsday. You might never come out alive. She's unstable. I can only hold her back for so long."

"You should get her a muzzle."

"See, this is why I talk to you," Cody teased. "You have the solution for everything."

"Not everything. There's the weather today."

Cody winced. "Yeah...so rain makes for a wet Valentine's Day. No big deal." He paused. "You're not freakin' out, are you?"

Autumn had a fear of storms. Or at least, she did before the previous summer, when Cody had cured it (or so he had assumed) at Danville's Tropical Resort.

"Nah, I'm good. It's only sprinkling." She paused. "So...Valentine's Day."

"Yeah. It's the mushiest day of the year."

"Right." She let out one of her husky laughs and he felt like smiling. "Who even cares about this stuff?"

"Uh...not us?" Cody raised an eyebrow dryly at the phone as if she could see him.

"Well, I never did before," Autumn stammered. "But only 'cuz this is, like, a holiday for saps and couples, which I'm not. A sap, I mean. And um, and I've never had a Valentine."

She was awkward, but never usually _this _awkward. Something was bugging her.

"Me neither," Cody muttered, messing the back of his hair with a hand.

A beep sounded and he paused, almost relieved.

"You there?"

"Yeah, one sec. Got another call."

"If it's Phineas..."

Cody squinted at the screen. "It is."

"Tell him I'm going to tee-pee his house."

"Okay." Cody snorted, pressing a button and greeting his old friend with a curt, "She's going to tee-pee your house, dude."

"Huh?" Phineas Flynn sounded confused on the other end.

"Autumn."

"Oh. Cool! How come?"

"You interrupted a previous conversation. _Thank _you."

"Sorry."

"No, Phin, seriously, thank you. I was about to throw the phone out in the rain."

"It's only sprinkling."

"Work with me."

"Okay."

"I need an excuse not to do anything with Autumn today," Cody admitted, voice like sandpaper.

"What? Why?" Phineas' voice was surprised.

"Because I don't have anything planned and we're not like that."

"Like what? Romantic? Capable of showing emotion?"

Cody raised both eyebrows. "Isabella?"

"Hi!"

"'Sup."

"You're on speaker, C-Man!" Phineas called to the phone.

"Joy." Cody heard drilling. "Invention?"

"Preparing for the Valentine's Day party tonight, remember? ...Cody?"

"I'm nodding."

"Oh."

"You and Autumn are coming, right?" Isabella asked.

Cody leaned against the wall, drumming his fingers against his leg. "Dunno."

"Why not?" That was Baljeet. "Valia and Galan are attending. And Mishti is coming as well!"

"Have a nice triple honeymoon, then, and call us when you get back," Cody grunted.

"Come on, Cody, it'll be fun!" Phineas pleaded. "Ferb's got his new guitar for performances and we made this card customizer...oh, and a Hose Arena earlier this morning!"

Buford's voice came from further off, it seemed. "Me, I'm just waitin' to use the card thing to give people papercuts!"

"Golly gee, how can I refuse?" Cody scoffed. "Look, me and Autumn are way too..."

"Awkward?" Ferb offered calmly.

"Uncomfortable?" Izzie added.

"Stoic?" Baljeet suggested.

"...too _all of the above _for Valentine's Day," Cody finished with a smirk.

"I was talking to Galan earlier," Phineas informed him. "He had some trouble too."

"What, Valia forgot to notice him tripping over his crush on her? _Again_?" Cody chortled.

"I think he came through," Isabella said cheerfully. "He called and said Valia loved the Valentine he gave her and they're coming to the party as a kinda best-friend date."

"But she still has no clue."

"Exactly. It's tough having a crush on your best friend. Especially when they take _forever_ to figure it out!"

Cody could practically see her elbowing Phineas comically.

"But at least_ I_ came to the _conclusion_, right? Right?" Phineas insisted indignantly.

"It was worth the wait," Isabella teased.

"Yeah, well, not only do I feel weird about doing something with Autumn today, but I'm pretty sure she _wants _us to do something."

"Why not just give in?" Ferb suggested.

"Did you go hammer-happy on your skull again, Fletcher?" Cody groaned. "It's gonna kill me."

"You care about her, right?" Isabella demanded.

Silence.

"Cody?"

"Yeah."

"You want her to feel special, right?"

"I guess."

"You do."

"Whatever."

"You _do_!"

"All right, I do, sheesh!"

"And the only way to do that, especially today, is to do whatever she thinks you think you're gonna do for her without thinking it yet. ...Cody? Listening?"

"Yeah, one sec, lemme just pick up the shredded pieces of my brain all over the carpet..."

"Cody!" She burst into laughter.

"So you're saying I've gotta do whatever she wants and that'll be enough."

"He can be taught!" Phineas crowed.

"Can it, Phin, you don't have room to talk," Cody teased.

"Not funny."

Cody tensed. "Oh, man. Autumn's been waiting this whole time. Gotta go." He hung up on the gang and called Autumn back. "Autumn?"

"Take your sweet time, tough guy. I'm just bored out of my head over here."

"Sorry. Phineas. Chatterbox. Forgive me?"

She sounded pretty relaxed. "Yeah, fine, and maybe we can talk about..."

Another stupid beep.

Cody blinked at the screen and didn't recognize the number. "Hang on." He pressed the button again and said testily, "Hello?"

"Cody!" squealed an irritatingly familiar, perky, high voice.

"Mable?" Cody wanted to jump out the window himself now.

Mable Haze was a girl in every one of Cody's classes at school, always wearing hot pink, your typical high school Queen Bee of the shallow and cheap. She had bouncy angel-blonde hair with pink streaks and huge, creepy, baby-blue eyes. Eyes that were forever fixed on Cody instead of her workbook.

She stalked him with her clique of low-lives in school. Why did she have to torment him on his own phone? Today? Interrupting _Autumn_?

Mable had tried to rope Cody into going to parties with her or any social gathering, really, but he had weaseled his way out of it every time. He hadn't told her about Autumn. It wasn't to spare her feelings (he didn't care about them anyway, convinced she didn't actually have any due to her stuck-up, jerky attitude) or because he enjoyed the attention (he so did _not_). It was because it made him feel cotton-mouthed and uncomfortable when he thought of telling people Autumn Karmer was his girlfriend. The words _boyfriend _and _girlfriend_ never fit for either of them when referring to each other; it was like saying the other was their personal property, and they both knew that was completely false.

"How the heck did you get this number?" Cody demanded.

"That tall Brit with the green hair told it to me. All I had to do was, like, bat my eyes and he spilled. Couldn't resist my charm, am I right? I am so right."

"Ferb?" The name sputtered out of Cody in a hard cackle. "Ferb's not a sucker for fake eyelashes, Mable. What did you really do to him?"

"I batted my eyes and he..."

"Uh, no. He gave you my number because he was trying to help and didn't have a clue that this is the last conversation I would have on earth with the last _person _on earth."

"You sound even _badder _on the phone!" she squeaked.

"I don't wanna know what that means."

"It means you're, like, the most wanted bad boy in Danville High! Too bad you're taken, right?"

"I said I didn't want to know." Cody's pupils crossed. "Wait. What?"

"You're taken, hel-lo!"

"I'm missing something and I'm glad."

"By me, Cody!"

Cody squeezed his eyes shut. "No. No I'm not. And FYI, Drama Queen, _badder_ isn't a word."

"Well, I just said it, du-uh!" Mable was probably flipping her hair, letting out an annoying giggle. "It means, like, to be more bad boy! Right?" Did she have zero brains?

"I miss Buford," muttered Cody under his breath.

"Oh! My! _GOSH_. OMG! Cody! I, like, totally forgot to tell you!" Mable let out another squeal and didn't stop for about twelve full seconds.

"Mable." She continued to squeal. Of course. Cody gritted his teeth. "Mable. The Dying Chicken noise? You gotta stop that. Mable, knock it off! My ears are crying."

She stopped and he exhaled in relief.

"You and me! We are going to the cheerleader's Valentine's Day bash tonight! We are gonna be the cutest couple there! Are you excited? You are totes excited. You're, like, mind blown, am I right?"

"You are wrong. Get off the phone and go make somebody else's nightmares come true."

"You don't have to wear a tux, trust me! Just get rid of that dorky mop-top look you got goin', honey, 'cuz that is _so _last generation, mm'kay?"

Autumn was waiting again. Cody knew she'd be ticked if he went on like this for too long (not that he wanted to).

"Listen, Mable, I gotta..."

"It's gonna be _fabulous_! Oh, and bring roses. There might be yearbook picture-taking."

"I'm hanging up."

"And try not to..."

He hung up.

"Autumn, you there?"

"Uh-huh."

"Sorry."

"Since when did you become so popular?"

"'Bout ten minutes ago."

"I bet they're all girls."

Cody could feel his face reddening. "Shut up."

"So...what're you doing for the rest of the day?"

Cody stiffened. "Uh...nothing. Something. I dunno, okay?"

"Oh. Well, um, we could go to the Park if you're bored too."

Cody blinked. "We always go to the Park."

"Got any better ideas?"

Cody's eyes fell on a soda can with a straw in it on his desk. Suddenly an idea (no, really) expanded through his mind and he almost grinned, Phineas-style.

"Yeah, actually. Meet me at the Danville Wall Company."

"Danville has a Wall Company?"

"You don't know everything about this town."

"Deal!"

With that, they signed off.

* * *

"Hello?" Autumn stepped cautiously around a corner.

The brick building with the large sign _Danville Wall Company_ seemed completely deserted for today. No cars parked anywhere, not a sound through the entire lot.

"Cody?"

Had she been set up? A prank? That would suck. Crazy as it was for her, she was really hoping to spend some time with Cody this evening. Funny how a guy as much of a puzzle as he was had snagged her heart the way the Bannister boy had.

A door opened suddenly and she was pulled backward into the building.

Yanking her mouth away from the hand cupped over it, Autumn balled her hand into a fist and slammed her elbow hard into her captor's chest.

This time the yelp came from behind her and a _thump _sounded. "Agh!"

Autumn whirled around, recognizing the voice. "Cody!"

Cody staggered to his feet. "Present and accounted for," he gasped, "with half my ribs still whole."

Autumn winced. "Sorry. Instinct."

"S'okay." Cody straightened, coughing, then held out a small object to her.

"Is this a straw?" Autumn took it from him, raising an eyebrow.

Cody nodded. "Look." He gestured to the room around them.

The place was filled with blank, white walls stacked together like dominoes.

"Wow." Autumn stared, confused. "Nice. Remind me what we're doing here?"

"My mom and I used to do this thing," Cody said, shrugging off his black, leather jacket and kicking off his shoes so that his red T-shirt with the golden dollar sign was fully showing, as were his socks, "where you take a straw, you dip it in some paint, you get a paper and you blow."

"Sounds messy."

"Your wisdom is unparalleled," he teased. "Lose the shoes and the hoodie. We're going native."

"It's freezing in here!" Autumn protested, uncomfortable when she pulled her gray hoodie jacket off to reveal a yellow T-shirt, fumbling to yank off her shoes.

"You'll warm up."

"Where's the paint?"

Cody point to four paint cans: blue, green, yellow, and red. "On three."

"Wait. Are we talking, _One, two, three, go_, or O_ne, two, go-on-three_?"

"Try not to hurt yourself."

She whacked him across the shoulder and he smirked.

"Just start running and blowing on three. It's not difficult. Ready?"

She nodded.

"One...two...three!"

The two teens dipped their straws into the paint (yellow and red for starters) and began blowing, running up and down the walls.

"Couldn't we get in trouble for this?" Autumn called between blows.

"I'm counting on it," he called back.

She laughed. Nobody made a good giggle bubble up inside her like Cody Bannister.

"Get that one?"

"Am now."

"Watch it!"

"What did you do over _there_? It looks like Bigfoot sneezed on it!"

"Don't insult the Sasquatch! He has eyes everywhere."

"Last one!"

"Make it count."

"All the colors?"

"Go for it."

"Yes!"

"Watch out, Autumn!"

"Don't threaten me!"

"No, seriously, look out!"

Autumn realized then that she had stepped in the yellow paint bucket. She was yellow up to her knee. "Aw, man!"

"Least it matches your shirt."

Panting, they looked around at their work, sitting down.

"We are in _so_ much trouble," Autumn laughed.

"Busted!" Cody shouted through cupped hands, the word echoing off the newly-decorated walls. "Too bad Candace isn't here to bust us herself."

"Who goes on a Ski Trip with their dude for Valentine's Day anyway?" Autumn rolled her eyes. She smirked. "I'm not warmed up, by the way."

He handed her her hoodie and slid his jacket back on.

"Hey, uh, did I say Happy Valentine's Day yet?" he checked, not looking at her.

Autumn stared at him. "Not yet."

"Happy Valentine's Day, then." Cody gave her his crooked smile. She practically melted.

"Just so you know," she said, "this was way better than a card."

"Yeah. I know." Cody said cheekily. "But thanks anyway."

"You ever wonder why we argue more than anything?" Autumn examined a blue and green wall while she spoke quietly.

Cody was surprised she'd even ventured to ask. "Because our lives both sucked before Phineas and Ferb and we're prone to angst attacks?"

She sputtered out a laugh. "Yeah, that's gotta be it."

"Drama King and Queen, you and me." Cody pulled on his shoes.

Autumn began double-knotting the laces on hers. "Thanks for being there anyway, tough guy. Drama and all."

Cody sat back-to-back with her, leaning on his palms. He was still surprised, but pleasantly so. Autumn didn't usually get sentimental. Neither did he. "My pleasure, Happy Helen."

She laughed. He grinned. Maybe Valentine's Day wasn't as difficult as it had seemed.

* * *

**(Author's Note: Whew! Now, be on the lookout {either tonight or tomorrow} for the Phinabella finale, where this fanfic, _Brave_, and Phineas and Isabella's bit in this 3-fic story of one-shots all come together. There will be singing. Be warned. It's Phineas and Ferb, after all! Don't forget to add detailed reviews! I miss you guys; seems like some of you have deserted me! ~Doverstar)  
**


End file.
